1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dental image processing device, system, and method for carrying out processing of a dental image of a patient, such as color correction, and to a computer-readable recording medium with a dental image processing program recorded therein.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2008-171439, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
Composite resins have been conventionally used as dental filler for filling a cavity formed in a tooth due to, for example, caries. In filling with composite resins, for example, a dentist visually compares the color of a patient's tooth and the color of color samples and selects a color sample having the color closest to the patent's tooth. Each color sample is provided with a table specifying a recommended color combination for the composite resins to be used for filling, and the dentist selects the color of composite resin to be used for filling by referring to the table corresponding to the selected color sample and performs treatment therewith. Color samples in this case are, for example, ceramic pieces, bearing different colors, that are manufactured in the shape of teeth.
In addition, in treatment using the ceramic crown method, for example, a dentist visually compares the color of a patient's tooth to the color of color samples known as “shade guides”, selects a color sample having the color closest to the patient's tooth, and performs treatment using a prosthesis prepared based on the selected color sample.
The color samples described above are, for example, ceramic pieces, bearing different colors, that are manufactured in the shape of teeth.
Furthermore, in order to reduce the burden on dentists associated with the above-described selection of color samples and so forth, a device has been proposed that aids in the color selection of color samples by providing a function of automatically selecting a color sample having the most similar color to a tooth (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2007-190371).
In addition, a device has been proposed that realizes highly precise color reproducibility by correcting the color of a row of teeth using a multiband image of teeth (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2005-341175).